About Me

I'm a director of Maidenhead United Football Club.
For ten seasons one of my roles at the club was to produce the match programme.
The aim of this blog was to write football related articles for publication in the match programme. In particular I like to write about the representation of football in popular culture, specifically music, film/TV and literature.
I also write about matches I attend which generally feature Maidenhead United.

Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Over the last twenty years an
elite group of European managers such as Ancelotti, Heynckes, Mourinho and Van
Gaal have moved seamlessly from post to post collecting trophies wherever
they go. Tending to be on the grizzled side with a wry turn of phrase, they appear
weary but have a tireless appetite for success following the template created over
a thirty career from the sixties to the nineties by Ernst Happel.

He was the first manager to
win the European Cup with two different clubs, and the only one to do so in the
pre champions league era. He won the domestic league and cup in four different
countries, squeezing in a World Cup Final to boot. He unsurprisingly summed up
his career thus "everything paid off and I have no regrets".

Rarely for a successful
manager he had an equally glorious playing career. A defender, one season at
Racing Club Paris aside, he spent it all in his native country Austria at Rapid
Vienna, winning six league titles including one double. He was capped 51 times
and was part of the Austrian team which finished third in the 1954 World Cup.

From his defensive role he
could see in his own words that it was "from midfield, [that] the game unfolds.". A deeply
reflective manager, he was best described as taciturn in his speech, ensuring
he commanded attention when he spoke.

Happel moved to the
Netherlands to begin his managerial career at Den Haag, a lowly team, where he
had the freedom to develop his tough but fluid 4-3-3 formation. Saying he would
rather win 5-4 than 1-0, he
expected his teams to shape themselves in his image: strong but with guile. The
strength was represented by an
aggressive pressing game, whilst the guile translated into players who could
adapt ot the situation of the game.

By 1968 he had turned Den
Haag into a top four team, beating Ajax to win the Dutch Cup. This was noted by
Feyenoord who won the double in 1969 but decided they wanted a man of Happel's
calibre to lead them into European competition.

A bon viveur who enjoyed a
cognac along with his ubiquitous cigarette, he soon settled into a routine
whereby he would chew the fat with regulars in a bar near Feyenoord's De Kuip stadium, pondering
tactics and selection.

One of his first actions was
to complete the "holy trinity" of a midfield adding Austrian Franz
Hasil to the more defensive minded Wim Jansen and "De Kromme" Wim Van
Hanegem. Recalling the 36 year old goalkeeper Eddy Pieters Graafland for the 1970 European Cup final against Celtic after he had
initially dropped earlier in the season, defeated manager Jock
Stein was moved to say afterwards: “Celtic has not lost to Feyenoord. I have lost to Happel,”.

Feyenoord went onto win the Intercontinental Cup (World Club Championship)
against Estudiantes and the 1971 Dutch league title before being eclipsed by
Ajax. This led to Happel electing to leave the Netherlands, staying briefly at
Sevilla before spending the rest of the seventies in Belgium, firstly with
Brugge where he won the league three seasons in a row from 1976 (with a double
in 77). He also took them to the 1976 UEFA Cup final and 1978 European Cup
final, losing on both occasions to Liverpool.

Before moving to Standard
Liege he took the Dutch national team to 1978 World Cup Final where substitute
Dick Nanninga equalised with 8 minutes to go against the hosts Argentina.
Robbie Rensenbrink almost won the game in ninety minutes only for his shot to
hit the post but Argentina ran out 3-1 winners in extra time.

After winning the Belgian Cup
in 1981 with Standard Liege, Happel moved to West Germany to manage Hamburger
SV. Praised by the veteran Gunter Netzer for his man management he won the
Bundesliga in his first season alongside another defeat in the UEFA Cup Final.

Twelve months later he retained the league title and won his second European
Cup, beating a Juventus team which featured Michel Platini, Zbigniew Boniek and
several of the Italian side which had won the 1982 World Cup. After a German
Cup win with Hamburg in 1987, Happel returned to his native Austria, leading FC
Tirol to back to back league titles, the first of which was in 1989. Fittingly his
career ended in 1992 managing the Austrian national team. He died in post, with the Praterstadion in Vienna soon renamed Ernst-Happel-Stadion.

A philosopher manager who
summed up his approach as "It
is not important why you win. You have to know why you have lost", Happel,
married the Austrian tradition of his childhood with the nascent Dutch style he
helped to create, successfully transferring the finished product from club to
club across western Europe.

Sunday, 19 March 2017

The previous
instalment in this series looked at the way Helenio Herrera ended the era of
free flowing passing football derived from the Austro-Hungarian school of the
inter war years, with his catenaccio tactic. Although remaining a dominant
influence on the Italian game for a generation or more, it was quickly challenged
by the Dutch system of total football, a revolution that was sparked by an
Englishman.

Vic
Buckingham was a former Tottenham Hotspur team mate of Arthur Rowe (TMWMMF #15)
in a playing career cut short by World War Two. Buckingham admired Rowe's
appreciation of the art of passing, and with Rowe's encouragement went into
management in Post War England. A deep thinker and articulate speaker a spell
coaching at Oxford University led to a prestigious appointment to manage
Pegasus before re-entering the professional game at Bradford Park Avenue. He
then took over at West Bromwich Albion, almost winning the first modern double
with the Baggies in 1954 when an FA Cup win was matched with runners up spot in
the League.

With a side
containing future managers Don Howe and Ronnie Allen, it was one of their team
mates Graham Williams who came up with a delicious metaphor to describe West
Brom's style of play:

‘He wasn’t
interested in defending. He wanted to see tricks and goals and push and run. He
said he didn’t want us to go ‘da di da di da’, passing for the sake of passing.
He always said he wanted us to play like ice cream and chocolate. That was his
phrase. Just flow, like ice cream and chocolate.’

This was
push and run in the style of Rowe's Tottenham, but like his mentor his team
only shone briefly, overshadowed in a more physical footballing era dominated
by local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers.

In 1959 he
moved to the Netherlands to manage Ajax, where the professional game was in its
infancy. He found a club redolent with the influence of Jack Reynolds (TMWMMF
#8), Buckingham explaining: “Their skills were different. Their intellect was
different and they played proper football. They didn’t get this from me, it was
there waiting to be stirred up. I influenced them but they went on and did
things above that which delighted me."

Taking the
opportunity to develop ideas discussed years previously with Rowe, who had
spent time in Hungary, he sowed the seeds of the system which would make Ajax
champions of Europe a decade later and establish Dutch football as a major
force in the game. This was nothing short of a philosophy which would envelop
the whole club in terms of technical development and positional play.
Buckingham won the Eredivise title and the Dutch Cup, in his first two year
spell in Amsterdam, when he also spotted a talented 12-year-old in the junior
section called Cruyff.

By 1961
Buckingham was back in England with Sheffield Wednesday but with his reputation
tarnished by a match fixing scandal which engulfed the Owls he returned briefly
to Amsterdam in 1964 in time to give a debut to a teenage Johann Cruyff around
whom the great Ajax team would be built.

Following a
controversial spell at Fulham he returned to the continent when Barcelona,
remembering an Inter Cities Fairs Cup tie at Sheffield Wednesday in the early
60s, harked back to the time of Jack Pentland (TMWMMF #9) by turning to
Buckingham to rejuvenate a team that had fallen to the lower reaches of La
Liga.

In a
wonderful final flourish as manager Buckingham's style was the perfect match
for the Catalan club, and within two seasons repeated his feat from the
Hawthorns by almost winning the double.

His team
were pipped to the title by Valencia, as despite having the same points and a
better goal difference, the Spanish championship was decided by the head to
head record between the two clubs. However he achieved a modicum of revenge and wrote his name into the club
annals of history by going onto win the 1971 Copa del Rey, then known as the
Copa del Generalísimo, 4-3 after extra time against Valencia, a triumph played out in front of deadly rivals Real Madrid's biggest fan, the dictator
General Franco, who presented the trophy at the Bernabéu.

Back surgery
forced Buckingham to step down but before he did so he worked with Barcelona to
lift the Spanish FA's ban on foreign players. He was then replaced by Ajax
manager Rinus Michels who brought with him his star player Johann Cruyff.

Buckingham's
career then wound down at the likes of Sevilla and Olympiakos, his key role in the
development of the game being a connector of football's knowledge network. A
man who came into contact with others who had more illustrious careers, soaking
up their ideas, first adapting and then passing them onto future greats. A man
of sophistication with the ability to boil his philosophy down simply thus:

“Long-ball
football is too risky. Most of the time what pays off is educated skills. If
you’ve got the ball, keep it. The other side can’t score.”

Sunday, 5 March 2017

Flick through the back pages of
2017, and you will find the latest trials and tribulations of the likes of
Guardiola, Klopp, Mourinho, Ranieri and Wenger, superstar managers one and all.
Despite previous characters in this series leading their teams to similar
feats, all were, in their time, firmly in the shade of their team, until one
man broke the mould and created the template for the cult of the manager.

Commonly known by
his initials HH, Helenio Herrera was born in Argentina in 1910 to Spanish
parents, and at the age of 10 moved to Casablanca, then part of the French
empire. Becoming a French citizen he started his playing career in what is now
Morocco then at the age of 22 moved to Paris to play for a variety of clubs
around the capital. An unremarkable defender, his career was hampered by injury,
retiring aged 35, Herrera openly confessing his mediocre playing career was to
give him an edge when he moved into management, initially in France.

He soon moved to
Spain where he won back to back La Liga titles with Atletico Madrid in 1950 and 51. After two years in Portugal he returned to Spain
with Barcelona, on a mission to end the dominance of the all-conquering Real
Madrid. He did this domestically, doing the double in 1959, and successfully
defending La Liga in 1960. In Europe he led Barca to win the first two Inter
Cities Fairs Cups (now the Europa League) but he couldn’t stop Real winning their
fifth consecutive European Cup losing comfortably to them at the semi-final
stage.

At this point Herrera was a manager
who prized psychology, popularising phrases such as "he who doesn't give
it all, gives nothing" and "with 10 our team plays better than with
11". He would post slogans like: "Class + Preparation + Intelligence
+ Athleticism = Championships" on signs around the ground and get players
to chant them during training. He insisted on strict discipline supervising
players’ diets and insisting on no smoking and abstinence from alcohol. At Camp
Nou this bought him into conflict with the maverick lifestyle of star player
László Kubala and led to his departure to Italy in 1960.

Angelo Moratti, the multimillionaire
owner of Internazionale had spotted the opportunity to bring Herrera to Milan,
and it was at the San Siro that he became known as Il Mago (the wizard) by
building the Grande Inter team that would win three Serie A titles as well as
back to back European Cups.

He elevated himself to greatness by
adding tactical innovation to his man management, becoming the leading
proponent of Catenaccio. Although this was a phrase which became synonymous
with defensive play, Herrera insisted that the formation also known as Verrou
(the door bolt) was a catalyst for exciting vertical play featuring rapid
counter attacks.

Its origins date back to Austrian
Karl Rapan’s deployment of the tactic in 1930s Switzerland. Based on a 5-3-2
formation, it created a free (libero) role known as the sweeper with a third centre
back used to tidy up between the middle two defenders. Herrera used this to
suck the opposing team forward, then utilised Inter’s deep lying Spanish
playmaker Luis Suarez to launch accurate long balls to speedy attacking full
backs Giacinti Facchetti and Brazilian Jair Da Costa. Responding to criticism
of his team as defensive, Herrera would point to Facchetti’s record of scoring
as many goals as a forward

In addition Herrera pioneered the
use of the Ritiro to prepare his team by taking them away to a hotel for a few
days to prepare for matches and using the phrase “12th player” to cite the
importance of supporters which inadvertently boosted the fledgling Ultras
movements in the late 60s

Herrera finally vanquished Real
Madrid in the 1964 European Cup Final, defending the Trophy twelve months later
by beating the other Iberian powerhouse Benfica in 65. He was denied a third
win in 1967 by Jock Stein’s Lisbon Lions, as his team started to wane.

He became the highest paid manager
in the world in 1968 when he moved to Roma for an annual salary £150,000 pa,
but despite winning the Coppa Italia in 1969 he was sacked in 1970. His career
wound down in the next decade, partly due to ill health, making brief comebacks
with Inter and Rimini, before ending his career at Barcelona at the start of
the 80s, just as star of the greatest Briton to follow in his footsteps, Alex
Ferguson, was starting to rise.